Montpelier House and Western House, 89 and 91 Market Place

A house built in the 1750s, used as retail premises in the C20 and divided into two units in the late C20.

MATERIALS: the front range is of knapped flint with gault-brick dressings, whilst the rear range is of handmade red brick. Roof covering of black-glazed pantiles.

PLAN: the house faces west onto the Market Place and has a double-pile, rectangular plan with a small rear C20 extension to Western House.

EXTERIOR: Montpelier House has three storeys and seven window bays, under a pitched roof with stone coping to the gable parapets and internal gable-end stacks at both ends. There is a bracketed eaves cornice and platbands at first and second-floor level. Each window is surrounded by brick blocking, flush with the flint, and has a flint panel below, overall giving the impression of simplified flushwork. The central three bays are broken forward and defined by rusticated brick quoins, repeated on the outside angles of the facade. The C20 glass door in the central bay is set within a semi-circular porch on two fluted Roman Doric columns and pilasters with a Greek key meander in the frieze and a plain entablature. The fenestration consists of six-over-six pane horned sashes to the ground and first floors, and three-over-three pane horned sashes to the attic floor, all with gauged skewback arches, except for the ground-floor windows flanking the entrance which have rusticated voussoirs. The two ground and third-floor windows on the right-hand are without horns. A second doorway in the extreme right bay has a timber doorcase with consoles supporting a hood. On the left (north) gable end is a flat-roofed single-storey extension in the same building materials, fitted with a bowed plate-glass display window. The rear pile of the house is under a catslide roof.

INTERIOR: the main staircase has been removed but there is a secondary stick-baluster staircase to the south (in Western House), under which is re-used mid-C17 small-framed panelling. The first-floor centre room has a marble fire insert and an eared timber surround with acanthus decoration, an imbricated pulvinated frieze interrupted by shell ornament in high relief, and an eared overmantel with corner rosettes beneath a broken pediment containing a bust. There is large-framed wall panelling with meander decoration and a plaster cornice with dentils, egg-and-dart moulding and modillions. The window surrounds have reel and bobbin mouldings and acanthus carving.